9. Luka
9
LUKA
S weat rolls down my neck as I lift my head to the sky, my eyes closing so the sun directly above my head doesn’t scorch them.
“I always thought he was gay.”
I turn to Arseni just as he puffs on a cigarette, innocently peering at me beneath long lashes that belong more on a girl. When he blows out the smoke, it stutters with his laugh.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks.
“You think Nikita Petrov is gay?”
Arseni shrugs. “You know any other straight dudes who garden as much as he does?”
I consider it.
“You know what,” Arseni snaps his fingers several times as he takes another drag of his cigarette. He seems to be trying to recall something, and as soon as it solidifies in his mind, his eyes brighten. “The villain from The Hunger Games. That guy gardened like a motherfucker.”
I shake my head and look toward the gate of the Petrov mansion, my machine gun lazily leaned against my shoulder as I balance the handle in my palm. Arseni isn’t even holding his. He’s using it as a makeshift cane, his hand curled over the barrel while he leans against it. I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t loaded.
You can tell how seriously we take our jobs as guards of this estate. Now that Nikita Petrov is no longer Pakhan, at least. He’s been dethroned for months now, but it’s still all anyone seems to talk about.
“Of course, there are other signs,” Arseni goes on, his lips pursing like he’s pondering. “The temper tantrums, for instance. It’s probably his suppressed sexuality making him cranky all the time.”
I roll my eyes. “He isn’t gay.”
“He refused to marry your sister… If I had her all over my dick, I would marry the shit out of that, you know what I mean?” He thrusts his hips slightly while pumping his fist, a stupid grin on his face.
“You’re a fucking moron, you know that?”
He laughs and raises a finger. “But that doesn’t make me wrong.”
My neck rolling, I huff a laugh with him, but it’s more bitter than amused. “Nikita is a smarter man than the current leadership . I’m sure he could tell she was only after his power.” I look Arseni up and down teasingly. “She sure as shit wouldn’t have looked at you twice.”
Arseni smiles and flicks ashes off his cigarette. “Your familial love is so refreshing, you know that? Sometimes, I feel sad about being a stray, but then I think about how I could’ve ended up with a sibling like you and feel so much better.”
“Glad I can be of service.”
Arseni’s smile falls as the sound of the front door opening pulls his attention. We’re supposed to be stationed farther apart from each other, watching the fence line, always at the ready for intruders. Ironically, it’s our own people we’re most vulnerable to. Not everyone in the Bratva is happy about the change in power, and my sister, along with my new brother-in-law, feel it’s best to be prepared for anything. Including a civil war.
And Mila oh so kindly volunteered me for the front line.
When I turn my head that way, I see Mila along with two bodyguards headed for the parked SUV out front. Her lips tilt up into a tight smile at me, a peace offering of sorts after yesterday, most likely. I don’t smile back.
When Arseni waves, she glances at him but faces forward and stalks to the SUV.
“Fuck you too,” he mutters under his breath before taking a pull of his cigarette. He studies the short bud as he blows out the smoke but doesn’t toss it to the ground. Not yet. His insistence on using every last bit of something is one thing about Arseni that can get annoying.
I turn to study the back of my sister’s head, her new cropped haircut looking ridiculous as ever. When she cut it, she showed up to my mother’s house for dinner with her chin obnoxiously high like she expected us all to say something.
My mother just stared, blinked, and conveyed her disapproval in a look you could see but couldn’t really accuse her of having. Leo asked why she wanted to look like a dude. I watched their fight unfurl dispassionately, knowing the whole time why she did it.
Because now she could. Now she was queen, and we were her subjects.
Her whole life, my father taught her how to be a whore to a powerful man. Finally, it paid off for her. She found the sucker with the big house, the powerful name, and the tiny brain. Hooray, Mila.
“You think he still fucks her with that haircut?” I ask as Mila sets her purse in the back of the SUV and looks back at the house.
“I don’t think it’s that bad… I’d still bang her, if that helps.”
“You’d fuck a cactus, Arseni.”
He chuckles. “You know, it would be way more fun joking about screwing your sister if you actually cared.”
“ Everyone has screwed my sister.”
“Even you?”
When I scrunch up my nose, Arseni makes a gun with his fingers and points it at me. “Got ya there, didn’t I?”
The smile vanishes from his face as he sees something over my shoulder that makes his face turn white.
“ Shit ,” he hisses, tossing the cigarette to the ground and hiking his gun up before darting away from me. I already know who he sees before I turn.
Vitaly, my sister’s husband and the Bratva’s new Pakhan, marches from the house toward the waiting SUV. He glances over at me, meeting my eyes, and neither of us make any move to greet the other.
I get off on the fact that he doesn’t like me. Once, he came with my sister to our mother’s house, and it was the most awkward dinner imaginable. My mother acted like she was the one who wanted to be married to him, fawning over him, being so weird as to call him sir . I’d never felt closer to my siblings as we exchanged looks with each other, taking turns rolling our eyes over the Ice Queen’s sudden warm demeaner. Vitaly hasn’t been back.
He climbs into the SUV with Mila, but it doesn’t pull away. Minutes pass while it just sits there, and I imagine them talking, arguing maybe.
My tongue prods at my two crooked bottom teeth with annoyance while I wait. Before today, my teeth have never bothered me. I’ve never even noticed them. But lately, my physical flaws have been popping to my attention.
Finally, Mila gets out and heads my way.
Oh… They were arguing about me .
I look away for a moment to hide my smirk.
“Hey,” Mila says as she approaches.
I turn back to her and dip my head in greeting.
She holds her elbows like she’s cold on this Nevada summer day. It’s a hundred and four degrees out here.
“Listen, I get that you and Arseni like to have a good time, but you’re going to have to work separate shifts if you can’t effectively do your jobs together. We really need you to be split up so you can cover more ground and be paying close attention at all times. There are too many enemies just waiting for us to let our guard down, and if they saw you guys not paying any attention, what would they think of the rest of our security, you know?”
I can feel my face remaining perfectly neutral, but inside, I laugh. I’m sure that’s not quite what Vitaly told her to say.
I raise my hand to my forehead in a salute and snap it away. “Yes, Mrs. Petrov.”
Mila’s cautious gaze morphs into a glare. “Don’t do that.”
“Don’t do what?”
“Don’t be such an asshole . Just… Goddamn it, Luka, just do your job. Okay?”
I nod once. “Okay.”
She continues to glare, rightfully unconvinced. “Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?”
I lift a shoulder. “I liked my old job.”
“You dealt people drugs from behind a grocery store deli counter. Three fourths of your job was slicing meat and mopping the floor. You wore a hair net for fuck’s sake.”
“Yeah, well, beats sweating my ass off all day so I can protect your boyfriend from invisible predators.”
Mila frowns. “You know he’s my husband, and you know he isn’t the only one you’re protecting. Our entire family is vulnerable right now.”
I snort. “I seem to have missed all the guards stationed at my door.”
Her eyes close as she takes a deep breath, her arms laying at her sides as she lets it out. “If you feel unsafe, you are always welcome here. You know that.”
“Thanks, sis. I feel much better now.”
She looks away, her red painted lips pursing. She’s changed so many things about her appearance since coming into power, but she kept the red lipstick. The raised chin. The hardness that comes over her when she’s angry, like now.
With another deep breath, she seems to force some of her anger away and come back to me, handing me yet another olive branch I don’t want. It’s times like these that make me realize I prefer my mother’s content with distance.
Mila clears her throat. “Leo has another theory about Piper.”
Nice subject change .
“Oh?”
She nods. “The last thing Piper texted him was that she picked up a girl broken down on the side of the road with her boyfriend. Leo’s convinced the boyfriend did something to Piper.”
She texted him that?
Where did he think she was going?
Unease settles, but it’s only enough to shift my stomach. If I had an appetite, it’d be spoiled, but I’m not nauseous. I’m fine. He obviously doesn’t suspect me.
“Why would he think that?” I ask.
Mila shows her palms as she shakes her head, her mouth opening. “I mean, because her phone is going straight to voicemail, and she hasn’t been home since yesterday morning. I keep telling him it’s way too early to be freaking out like this, but uh, well…” she cringes. “The girl Piper picked up was an illegal immigrant. Piper was texting Leo because she thought they could, you know, find work for her or something. So, I don’t know, maybe the girl was onto the fact that Piper had bad intentions, or hell, maybe the girl and her boyfriend had bad intentions for her .”
Mila lifts both shoulders, her mind grasping for something when all she wants is for the whore to come back so her eldest brother will stop bothering her.
I scratch the back of my head while I think about that and hold back a bitter laugh.
Piper wanted to whore Lucia out.
What a slimy fucking bitch.
I can’t help it. I do laugh, shaking my head in the process as I bring my gaze back to Mila’s. Her eyes are narrowed at me like she’s trying to figure out what’s funny.
“What a fucking cunt,” I say.
Mila blows out a breath and nods. “Yeah. Well… What are we supposed to do, though? Leo loves her.”
“You sound like Mama.”
“You sound like you . Which is much worse.” Mila waves her comment away as if I’d argue. I wouldn’t. “Anyway, just… Please help, okay? He showed up here this morning looking like he was about to start chasing shadows again. And he did show me that text message, so what he said was true, but…” Mila sighs. “I don’t know. I told him to wait it out, but he said he’d been out all night searching for some illegal immigrant with a broken-down vehicle and thought he’d found him. He wants you to help confront the guy but is too afraid to ask. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s at your apartment right now waiting for you.”
“What?” I ask, my stomach rolling. Now , I could puke. “Did you tell him to go to my apartment?” I don’t realize I’m bowing up to her until I’m staring down at Mila, my eyes wide, my chest puffed.
Her brow furrows. “He’s your brother just as much as he is mine.”
She doesn’t mean brother. She means problem .
My hand trembles as I run it through my hair, remembering the key I gave him last November when he crashed on my couch for three weeks. I regretted it then. I never could have imagined how much I’d regret it now.
“I have to go,” I say, feeling the blood drain from my face as I turn.
“Luka, hold on,” Mila calls. “Wait for someone to cover your shift. You can’t just leave .”
Her voice fades as I make my way to my car, my steps starting out dreadfully slow then gradually transitioning into a sprint.
I picture Lucia on my bed, desperate for help, desperate to tell anyone, anyone about the crazy man who killed the nice woman giving her a lift when her and her boyfriend broke down…